ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 23 



drying Arthur Van Camp's favorite quilt let it catch fire and for a time 

 we had hard work to save its life. You would have laughed had you seen 

 our clothes-line. At five the rain ceased and under gray skies we started 

 down again, looking for a place to sleep. When it was growing dark 

 Arthur heard a mule — it proved to be a cow — and we knew help was 

 near. YVe saw a big barn across a big field and soon our messenger was 

 speeding with jugs and buckets to the farmhouse, quickly returning with 

 the joyful news, "We can stay." Before long supper was cooking and 

 we were hiding all the valuables we could in the weeds and bushes as 

 we did not want to carry all that load so far. We did take our suit-cases 

 and late that night we climbed up into Mr. Scherrick's big hay-mow. I 

 found Mr. Scherrick spreading hay for us and promising the boys all the 

 popcorn they wanted from the store in the loft. 



"Some of the boys talked in their sleep that night, but that was not the 

 only noise. The "mule" lowed, so did a calf, pigs squealed, a dog barked 

 and chased the pigs whenever they put their noses out of the barn, four 

 roosters beneath us crowed every five minutes to announce the coming of 

 morning, while mice nibbled around in the hay and sparrows twittered 

 and pigeons cooed around the eaves. It was not a very restful night, 

 but we laughed so much over the racket nobody felt tired when four 

 o'clock came and we all waded that plowed ground again to breakfast on 

 the river. 



"That morning we saw the men putting in the new breakwater near 

 Hidalgo, visited "Mr. Used-to-Did," an old friend of ours we had met 

 the year before and who had amused the boys by his lack of grammar. 

 At noon we camped upon a big sand-bar for dinner and in the afternoon 

 reached Newton where the boys played tennis with the West End Tennis 

 Association, and visited the stores. Late that night we went into camp in 

 a barn some miles below Newton. It was an immense barn, and supper 

 that night at nine o'clock in the big hay-mow was delicious. 



"At noon the next day we reached the pretty little village at Ste. Marie. 

 We took pictures of the old Catholic Church, saw the hospital, visited the 

 post-office — it closes for the noon-hour, and part of the crowd went to 

 one of the saloons — I mean it used to be one, and bought sodas. Gen. 

 Custer's last battle was on a poster on that building and the boys never 

 got through describing the scalping scenes. We ate dinner in a beautiful 

 grove below Ste. Marie and then began the most beautiful part of our 

 journey. 



"Dark Bend extends for nearly twenty miles and is just one curve after 

 another. The beauty of this land nobody can fully describe. It is like 

 Fairyland with its forests, big bluffs, old log cabins and shanties, and 

 sparkling water. It was a perfect June afternoon when we went through 

 it and once we heard the chimes from the distant Catholic Church at 

 Ste. Marie. We stopped for a swim, but I took no pictures in the Bend 

 for I knew they could never satisfy me. 



"The North Fork pours into the river here and from that place on 

 the river is much wider and deeper. It seemed odd to hear the boys in 

 the boat ahead of us and not be able to see them, but the curves were 

 so frequent we soon became used to that. Our voices echoed back from 



